War of Elysium

Chapter Eleven: The fall of Styx

         She called for her father. She reached out a limp hand and grasped at the air in which he should have stood. His shadow stretched far, even now. He called her Ducky and brushed back her hair. He was useless as a stylist, he couldn't even do a braid. She felt his warm hands stroke the sweat from her forehead.

"Dad?" She grumbled. Her voice was breathy and broken. She heard him respond, he comforted her and laughed with her. He told her she was brave and strong. They danced by the fire as the caravels settled behind them. He seemed a giant to her, but he just laughed at her awe. "All seems giant to a child." He laughed as he took her into his arms and swung her around in the air.

"Lara?" A woman called. She ignored the beckon, she wasn't Lara - not here - she was Ducky. "Lara." The woman repeated. Her heart sank, she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to be Lara anymore it was too painful.

"Lara, please sweetheart." The voice pled. It hurt her to ignore the woman, she by no means hated her. The opposite, in fact. Her voice was warm and loving but it wanted to take her from her father. Tears came to her eyes and she didn't hold them back. It felt so good to cry with her father. He took her face into his palm. 

"Don't cry, Ducky. Tears can't grow flowers." He whispered. His eyes burned into her but his body faded and flickered like the flame they danced before.
"I don't want to wake up." She cried as she charged into his embrace. "Please don't make me go." He placed a hand on her shoulder but if faded like the last light of dusk and all that remained was his big toothy smile.
"Dreams are no place to cry. You have to be strong, you have to wake up."

        She had expected to wake in some medical tent or the nurses office. The poster of a dark woman clumsily taped to the roof  brought a measure of comfort. She was in her own bed, in her own barrack. The war hadn't ended while she slept.

"I feel like death." She moaned to the stagnant air of her bedroom.
"You smell like it." Archi mocked from her bedside. She hadn't expected him to be there, if anyone maybe Iris or Reese.
"Arch?" She whispered. Her voice was hoarse and rough, she sputtered and coughed through her words.
"As hard as it may be for ya, try not to speak. That assassin did a number on your throat. The lab gear is booked up right now so Iris can't fix you up like usual." He said. 

Lara tried to raise her head to face him but failed and flopped back down.
"Iris?" She laboured.
"With Ade and Sintred. They're working triple time right now. No time for little ol' you, i'm afraid. Stuck with me instead." He joked. Lara wanted to return a joke but her crushed throat denied the world a slice of her doubtlessly genius retorts.

"Here." Arch offered a notepad and pen which she limply took in her hand. She immediately got to drawing crude images involving Aricci, Daphi and an excessively large spanner. 
"Charming." He laughed. "Check the last page."
She did, what met her could kindly be described as a Picasso-esque rendition of Lara's face beneath a speech bubble praising Archi's 'obvious' talents in all areas. She eked out a small laugh as she ripped out the page and threw it at him.
"What? I had to do something while you were taking your little nap. Or would you rather I sat here silently watching you sleep?" 
She nodded with a covered grin as she pulled her sheets further over herself.

"Right... Iris gave me a checklist for ya." He said, producing a crumpled up sheet of paper from his pocket. Lara sighed and her shoulders slumped. "I can tell her you're up and let her go over it if you'd like."
She shook her head. Iris may have cared deeply about Lara but she was far from gentle when it came to medical inspections.
"Oki. Question one: How bads it hurt?" He asked. She slanted her head to the side and shrugged. She wrote down on the paper a large figure nine.
"Oh, so not too bad then." He teased. In truth, she was in near agony. It was abundantly clear to her that Iris had been routing around in her thigh a few hours earlier. She could feel each individual rib breakage and so much as taking a deep breath sent shocks all across her body. She wouldn't let him know any of that, of course. 'Raptors feel no pain' as Garrison would say. The stupidity of the statement would have made her laugh but the agony she most definitely wasn't in would have made doing so... Inconvenient to her health.